CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Good morning. The moment of the CIO has arrived. So has the moment of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, big data, cybersecurity and digital business. These developments are related. A few years ago, people wondered what would happen to the CIO in an environment in which anyone could subscribe to software as a service. Any business person with a credit card could do that, it seemed. Integrating all of these new tools in an infrastructure and architecture that is deeply intertwined into an evolving business isn't so easy, and that is why the CIO is back.

"Each one of these initiatives is a CIO led initiative. This is the first time I have seen this going on in my career, the CIO banging on the table and saying this must get done," Silicon Valley pioneer Thomas M. Siebel said Wednesday at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, where he spoke in the capacity of CEO and founder of C3 IoT. C3 makes an enterprise software platform for AI and IoT. There is evidence to back up his claim. A new study from Harvey Nash/KPMG shows that for the first time in 10 years, more than seven in 10 CIOs believe their role is becoming more strategic, and that the number of CIOs reporting to the CEO is at a peak 62%. Compensation and job satisfaction are rising, too.

We can attribute these developments to the realizations that digital transformation is harder and more urgent than expected, and that the task of keeping the lights on can't be taken for granted in the age of WannaCry. Jeanne W. Ross, director and principal research scientist at MIT Sloan's Center for Information Systems Research, put it this way: "In the digital economy we architect for speed and integration," not just efficiency, as happened in the old days. "That transformation will be harder and take longer than you think."

COVERAGE FROM THE 2017 MIT SLOAN CIO SYMPOSIUM

Cybersecurity is the biggest challenge to industrial IoT development: Schindler Digital Chief. Securing web-connected elevators and billions of other “Internet of Things” devices will challenge industrial firms as they work to safeguard equipment not originally designed for the web, Schindler Group Chief Digital Officer Michael Nilles said Wednesday at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium. "This will be the biggest challenge of the industrial internet over the next five years."

CIOs hold out hope for humans as automation powers more IT processes. Human creativity and problem-solving skills are still in demand in information technology, even as IT becomes more automated, chief information officers and technologists said Wednesday at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s annual CIO Symposium. Lucille Mayer, CIO of client experience delivery at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., said that while technologies such as machine learning are helping the business understand and predict client behavior, humans remain crucial for mining for insights. “Humans are still needed to continue to raise the bar on where those insights lead,” she said.

Q&A: DBS Bank CIO on measuring digital transformation. David Gledhill, CIO at the Singapore-based bank and winner of this year’s MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award, tells CIO Journal that digital transformation requires an all-in mentality. 'It’s a total mindset shift," he ways. "You have to forget everything that you used to do and really reimagine completely what your product, what your service, what your core purpose is in a digital way toward customers. You have to leave the legacy at the door and go forth."

Hiring talent? Location matters. Technology was supposed to liberate employees from geography, but participating panelists at Wednesday's MIT Sloan CIO Symposium argued that when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, the location of corporate headquarters can still matter.

MORE FROM CIO JOURNAL

Toyota demonstrates blockchain apps for the car business. Chris Ballinger, senior vice president and CFO of Toyota Research Institute Inc., tells CIO Journal that the apps, which tackle car pooling and short term insurance, are meant to show potential uses for blockchain beyond financial services. "Blockchain is a platform that depends on the network effects of a lot of people on the same platform," he says.

America’s education gap and what CIOs can do about it. The “skills” gap cited by chief information officers as one of their most vexing issues is a facet of a larger, systematic failure in our schooling system, says Columnist Gary Beach. Work to reduce this “education” gap will take a generation and involve the help of educators and politicians, but also business leaders, including CIOs, vested in maintaining the country’s competitive edge.

STARTUPS

Instacart employees fulfill orders for delivery at a Whole Foods store in Los Angeles. The company raised $400 million in the first quarter.

PATRICK T. FALLON/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Venture funds flood startups with cash. Investors injected $14.5 billion into U.S. venture-backed startups in the first quarter, up 37% from the previous period, according to data from Dow Jones VentureSource, the WSJ's Scott Martin reports. After a cooling period the past year, information-technology investment edged higher, hitting $3.05 billion in the quarter, up 13% from the $2.7 billion in the prior period

Heath-tech startups feel the squeeze. Many health-technology startups are revamping their business strategies and others are finding it tougher to attract fresh capital amid the prospect of repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Journal's Ruth Simons reports. The number of digital health startups receiving funding dropped to 124 in the first quarter of 2017, the lowest quarterly total since the first quarter of 2011, according to StartUp Health, a startup mentor.

MORE TECHNOLOGY NEWS

J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler, center, is refocusing on lower prices and a more accessible image. The company said last month it was parting ways with creative chief Jenna Lyons, in pink.

SAM DEITCH/BFA

J.Crew boss confesses: I didn’t get the web. Millard “Mickey” Drexler has some regrets. “If I could go back 10 years, I might have done some things earlier,” the 72-year-old chairman and chief executive of J.Crew Group Inc.tells the Journal's Khadeeja Safdar. In an era of data-driven supply chains and online pricing algorithms, Mr. Drexler is discovering that his focus on design details is behind the times. “You go into a store—I love this, I love this, I love this,” he said. “You go online and you just don’t get the same sense and feel of the goods because you’re looking at a picture.” With sales at stores falling, Mr. Drexler says his plan is to emphasize lower prices, pivot toward more digital marketing and adopt a more accessible image.

Hedge funds vs. Silicon Valley talent battle. The battle for quantitative talent has turned some of the richest money managers into underdogs as they go up against deep-pocketed tech firms. As the WSJ's Laurence Fletcher and Sara E. Needleman report, the competition is leading some firms to try to out-geek Silicon Valley. Point72 lets employees take as much vacation as they want. London-based Aspect Capital rolls out a beer trolley on Fridays. But in the end, it is either about the day-to-day science or money. Recruiters say a candidate with a doctoral degree straight out of school can expect a minimum base salary at a hedge fund of around $100,000, plus a bonus of 50% to 100%.

Microsoft to buy cybersecurity firm Hexadite. Microsoft Corp. is set to acquire Boston-based firm Hexadite for $100 million, reports Reuters, citing an Israeli news site. Hexadite, which has a research office in Israel, offers products to automate the response to a cyberattack. Hewlett PackardVentures is an investor in the young company.

U.S. government may start shooting drones. Officials in the Trump administration say the federal government should be allowed to hack into and shoot down drones it sees as threatening, writes Mike Orcutt in MIT’s Technology Review. “In a draft legislative proposal obtained by the New York Times, administration officials argue that new legislation is needed because drones were ‘unforeseen’ when existing laws against unauthorized hacking and surveillance, and which protect civil aircraft, were passed,” Mr. Orcutt writes. The proposal doesn’t describe fully how the government would monitor and disable drones.

Tesla workers injured at rates higher than industry average. Factory workers at Tesla Inc.’s Fremont Calif., plant were hurt at a rate 31% higher than industry average in 2015, reports Julia Carrie Wong in The Guardian. The car company has defended its record since workers publicized safety complaints early this year, with some saying they have been pushed to meet aggressive production goals, Ms. Wong writes. Tesla, in a May 14 blog post, said it has made improvements to its facilities including reducing overtime, redesigning some equipment to avoid bending and reaching injuries, and creating safety teams to recommend other changes.

The search ace standing between Baidu and irrelevance. For much of the past two decades, Qi Lu, a search-technology whiz, waged losing battles against Google, first at Yahoo Inc. then at Microsoft Corp.’s Bing. Now, he says he can shape China’s Baidu Inc. into a worthy competitor in artificial intelligence. The Journal's Li Yuan reports that Mr. Lu drove up research and development expenses to $412 million in the first quarter of 2017, a 35% increase from a year earlier. Newly recruited talent and research is being aimed at search, speech recognition and driverless car technologies.

Google goes to China, making play for talent and attention. A friendly game of Go in the city of Wuzhen has given Google an opening to return to China’s good graces, seven years after it left the country over government censorship of its namesake search engine and hacks of its Gmail service. Near-term, the AlphaGo event was a chance for Google to raise its profile with China’s young engineering talent, says the Journal's Liza Lin and Jack Nicas. Two of Google’s top AI executives in its cloud unit are Chinese women: Fei-Fei Li and Jia Li, the former head of research at messaging firm Snap Inc.

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

OPEC renewed an agreement to withhold some crude-oil supplies into March 2018, doubling down on its bet that it can raise prices despite soaring output from U.S. shale producers. (WSJ)

The Morning Download is edited by CIO Journal’s Tom Loftus and cues up the most important news in business technology every weekday morning. Kim S. Nash contributed to today's newsletter. Send us your tips, compliments and complaints. You can get The Morning Download emailed to you each weekday morning by clicking http://wsj.com/TheMorningDownload.